But one aspect of modern poverty is the same as ever. Inner city school leaders sometimes talk about children looking poorer than others. What they are referring to is not weight, but height. Poor kids are usually shorter (especially ex-refugees).

Thanks to research by Caroline Ridler, a researcher at the National Obesity Observatory, we can get a sense of scale on this – poorer boys of a white British background are 2cm shorter than richer ones when they leave primary school.

These tables give average heights for white British children, in centimetres, by neighbourhood deprivation. The figures at the top of the table are for richer pupils, and the bottom is poorer. First, these are reception-aged children.

Deprivation decile

Boys

Girls

1

Least deprived 10%

110.4

109.4

2

110.3

109.3

3

110.1

109.2

4

110.0

109.0

5

109.9

108.9

6

109.8

108.7

7

109.7

108.7

8

109.4

108.5

9

109.2

108.3

10

Most deprived 10%

109.0

108.1

…and 11 year-olds:

IDACI decile

Boys

Girls

1

Least deprived 10%

145.5

145.9

2

145.2

145.6

3

144.9

145.4

4

144.8

145.3

5

144.7

145.2

6

144.5

145.2

7

144.3

145.0

8

144.1

145.0

9

143.7

144.5

10

Most deprived 10%

143.4

144.3

The really big differences that school leaders observe are between very poor children and other poor children. Health data such as height is difficult to get at (for good reason!) but the government might consider using it as a proxy for working out how well Britain is doing with its most vulnerable and disadvantaged children.